Bringing up baby

Bundle of joy: When to feed? When to sleep? Motherhood is all about decisions… Photograph: Alamy

The welcome return of a colleague from maternity leave provokes speculation as to which guru she will follow. Not, obviously, Truby King, who before the war said babies were to be fed, bedded and cuddled strictly on schedule – wailing infants were not to be picked up before time, however wracked you both were, and mothers leaked through their blouses as they waited for feeding time.

Later came John Bowlby, who had done grim work observing kids in institutions orphaned by the war; his advice was, or was seen to be, that you must be with your babe almost the entire time – a pretty demanding rule when taken too literally.

I was lucky enough to have Benjamin Spock who didn't prescribe anything too difficult – except he kept on telling you to relax and enjoy it, so if it all got too much you felt a failure. Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby Book, I'm told, does at least lead to a fairly contented Big Mother.

The latest in America is apparently attachment parenting, which seems to be Bowlby plus – a recent Time cover featured a three-year-old standing on a stool to be breastfed. Whether it will turn such a mother into the "helicopter parent" who rings her sophomore son twice a day, or make her boot him off to boarding school at seven, only time will show. Meanwhile we wish our colleague all the best.